Up for sale is a lovingly restored Harman Kardon Citation II power amplifier. These are my specialty and I have rebuilt about 50 of them in the past 4 years, mostly for other folks. I am Jim McShane's authorized installer/tech for all things Citation. Now and then I get a core for a decent price and sell one. This particular one is a complete rebuild. Every wire, socket, jack, resistor, capacitor and speaker terminal is new. The transformers have been repainted. It has every tweak that my personal amp has. I have rebuilt a number of Citation II amps for customers using this recipe and they are very happy. I have heard Citation II amps in all forms. This amp will be 15-20% better than even a McShane level II+ amp. It is considerably better than a stock Citation II that has just had the power supply caps replaced. Really, it is a stunningly good amp! Here are the details: 1. I installed every single McShane kit - level II+ power supply (plus an extra little choke we have been installing in the past few as another small improvement). Additionally, the decoupling capacitance has been increased on this amp above even the stock level II+ kit. This was experimental in my amp and I have done it here as well. 2. Every capacitor and resistor in the entire amp is new - all very high quality parts from Jim. This is the premium capacitor set with Russian K40 paper in oil caps as the couplers to the output tubes. It is a wonderful combination and what I have in my own Citation II. 3. Every tube socket, jack, and wire is new. All wiring is teflon coated very high quality from Jim. A mix of solid and stranded wire is used, each where appropriate. AC tube filament wires are twisted to minimize hum. I replace all the jumper wires underneath the terminal boards as well. The four output tube sockets are NOS Cinch, the six 12BY7A sockets are Belton and they grip the pins very tightly. 4. I installed modern 5-way gold plated speaker terminals mounted on glass epoxy board. There is room for 3 terminals on each channel so they are connected as ground, 4, and 8 ohms with the 16 ohm tap wired inside the amp. If you require the 16 ohm tap it is simple to wire it to the terminals and put the 4 or 8 ohm tap inside the amp and I will do so before shipping the amp. 5. I installed a pair of triode switches on the rear of the amp. These are very high quality switches from Jim. They allow you to toggle between the stock ultralinear connection of the output tubes (65 watts/ch) or triode connection (34.5 watts/ch). Triode sounds a bit sweeter and still has more than enough power to drive most speakers in most rooms. The only caveat is that you should only change the setting with the amp off. 6. I installed a pair of tip jacks and a switch that allows you to switch between the internal meter and the jacks for biasing and AC balance. You may simply plug your external meter probes into the tip jacks and flip the switch and use it instead of the internal meter. I find even a $15 multi-meter to be far more accurate for biasing and balancing than the internal meters. After doing this I discovered the internal meter was not working. About 10% of the meters I see are dead. It is left there for cosmetic purposes. You would never use it anyway once you had used the tip jacks. 7. Our new CCS upgrade that makes the amp about 10 - 15% better in all regards. Better bass definition and more detail at all frequencies. This can only be installed by Jim or I or a highly skilled tech. You really need a dual channel oscilloscope to get it right. 8. A new modern 3-wire grounded AC power cord. This is the Audio Asylum tweaker's recipe using Belden 19364, a 14 gauge cable covered with TechFlex. A very nice power cord and it is securely clamped insided the amp. 9. The transformers are freshly painted in a brown that is close to the original color. These are done with two coats of automotive paint. The transformers are reinstalled with Deflex washers under them to eliminate any vibrations. 10. A separate filament transformer and regulated DC filament on the two input tubes. 11. The bias pot assemblies were questionable on this amp. Fortunately I have a stash of sealed mil spec bias pots from 1979 that fit perfectly. These have locking nuts and should last forever, and never need cleaning. 12. A very special tweak; a separate internal transformer for the bias supply. I have now seen 5 amps in the past year or two with failing bias supplies. This is caused by a weak solder joint on the bias supply winding in the original power transformer. The symptom is that the amp will kill a power tube. You replace the tube and a week or a month later another tube fails, but when you measure the bias voltage it seems fine. We found a small toroidal transformer that will fit on the back of the power supply bracket to drive the bias supply. In addition we add a bridge rectifier and convert the original half wave bias supply to full wave. This makes the bias filter capacitors twice as efficient. The result is a bias supply with much less ripple in it that will never fail. Separating the bias winding from the main high voltage winding in the main power transformer also cleans up the sound of the amp just a bit. This is hard to imagine since the stock amp is about as clean as they come, but there is a subtle improvement. The result is an amp that sounds just a bit better with a bias supply that should virtually last forever. I have installed this bias upgrade in several amps in the past year and none has blown another tube. Plus they sound better!
I would normally charge $3295 for this amp, but given that it has faded lettering on the face plate and the internal meter is not working I will lower the price to $3175. As stated above, the meter is a non-issue since there are tip jacks which are far better anyway. The amp includes a set of new Gold Lion reissue KT88 tubes and a pair of wonderful old stock Tungsol 12by7a input tubes. The 4 driver tubes are NOS GE JAN military 12by7a. The photos show two Gold Lion tubes and two old Shuguangs. I have installed another pair of Gold Lions since the photos were taken. The Gold Lion reissue KT88 is the best sounding modern production tube for this amp. I have been testing the amp for about 8 hours and it holds bias perfectly. It is so quiet you have to be within 6 inches of my 100 dB horn speakers to hear any hiss or hum at idle. I warrant the amp for two full years (tubes 90 days). Everything in it is new!
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